Warrior (57 page)

“Well, you said it yourself. Damin may be afraid of my reaction if I were to catch them in bed together. And you know how cautious Marla is. She’s probably filled his head with all sorts of tales of woe about the consequences of an affair with a woman of his own class. Do you think I should take him aside, perhaps, and let him know—subtly, of course—that, in light of their pending engagement, if he wants to . . . how should I say this? . . .
taste the fruit before he buys it
. . . that I wouldn’t mind?”

Bylinda stared at her husband in shock. “You would whore your own daughter for the sake of your ambition?”

Mahkas was appalled that she should misunderstand him so deliberately. “How dare you even suggest such a thing? I would never do anything to harm Leila. Or degrade her. I am simply saying that I understand what it is to be young and in love and that I want my nephew to know I won’t be angered if he feels the need to express his affection for Leila in a more . . . intimate way, before the betrothal is formalised.”

“You want to force Marla’s hand, is what you really mean,” she accused. Bylinda turned her head away to look out of the carriage window for a moment, as if she was too angry to speak of it.

When she turned to him again, her eyes were cold and she stared at him as if he were a complete stranger. “Do you hear yourself, Mahkas? Do you know what your ambition is doing to your only child?”

“My ambition is for all of us.”

“Your ambition is for
you
, Mahkas Damaran, nobody else.” She wiped away an angry tear before she continued in a cold voice that he didn’t think his wife capable of. “And you may tell your nephew anything you want. But let him know that if
I
catch him laying a finger on my daughter without the benefit of a formal betrothal, I’ll have him castrated, because I know for certain she doesn’t love or want him, so any attempt by Damin to act on your disgusting suggestion would be rape.”

Mahkas was shocked beyond belief by his wife’s defiance. And alarmed by her words. “What do you mean that you know for
certain
Leila doesn’t love Damin?”

But Bylinda shook her head and refused to answer him, turning to stare at the countryside as it rolled by.

She remained like that for hours, staring out of the window in stony, hostile silence, until the carriage came to a halt outside the walls of Krakandar and Mahkas learned that in his absence, his beloved nephew—the young man he was willing to give his only daughter to without the benefit of so much as a promise of a betrothal—had sealed his own city against him.

“What in the name of all the
gods
do you think you’re doing?” Mahkas demanded of Damin when he was finally able to force his way into the city by threatening to have every man on the gate hanged for treason. It had taken him the better part of three hours until they had finally managed to get through to the palace. His fury was a palpable, living thing.

To rub salt into the wound, Damin appeared to have set up an informal council of war in Mahkas’s own study. When he burst in, demanding an explanation, it was to find Damin, Almodavar, Kalan and Rorin Mariner poring over a map of the city, making plans for the gods alone knew what other mischief.

Damin looked up and frowned when he saw Mahkas, but instead of greeting his uncle or offering any sort of excuse for his actions, he turned to Almodavar. “We’ve got a discipline problem if your Raiders let people through the gate the first time someone raises their voice at them. You’d better fix that.”

To Mahkas’s astonishment, Almodavar took the criticism seriously and nodded in agreement with the young prince. “I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”

“Damin, I demand to know what is going on! The guards on the gate refused to let me in when I arrived. They claim you’ve sealed the city!”

“Not very effectively,” Damin pointed out, with a sudden grin. “Seeing as how you’re standing here telling me off about it.”

“It’s because of the plague, Uncle Mahkas,” Kalan explained, giving her brother a look that spoke volumes. “It’s reached Natalandar already. And Grosburn. We’ll be next if we don’t take precautions.”

“What precautions?” he scoffed. “There’s nothing you can do against the plague.”

“Actually, that’s not entirely true, my lord,” Rorin informed him. “The Harshini knew what caused it, which is why the plague was never a problem when they were among us. We just need to—”

“The Harshini?” Mahkas cut in sceptically, not fooled by the young man’s black sorcerer’s robes.

He was still a peasant in Mahkas’s mind and all the trappings of civility in the world wouldn’t change that. “What would you know about the Harshini, boy?”

“More than you or I know,” Damin said, coming to Rorin’s defence in the same way he defended Starros every chance he got. Marla had made a grave mistake in Mahkas’s opinion, allowing her son to mix with commoners so readily. The young prince was quite inappropriately familiar with his lowborn companions and gave their opinions much more weight than they deserved. “And I, for one, believe him. Rorin says it’s all to do with keeping the rat population down.”

“Not just rats,” Kalan corrected. “Cats. Dogs. Anything with fur. The plague is carried by fleas. If we can keep the city clean, if we can clean out all the places rats like to congregate, and have a way of isolating any cases that do occur, we might be able to stop it devastating the whole city.”

“But we have to do it
now
,” Damin emphasised. “Before the weather really warms up and the fleas start to breed again.”

“Even if I agreed with this, you’re asking the impossible!” Mahkas objected. “You can’t get rid of all the rats in the city. The grain store alone probably feeds ten thousand of them.”

“I know. So I’ve put out a bounty on them,” Damin announced. “One copper rivet for every dead rat. Raek Harlen is already down in the city with a troop of Raiders, organising a way to dispose of the bodies. We thought the glassworks were probably the best place. They have the biggest furnaces in the city, at any rate.”

“You can’t be serious! Who is going to pay for this?”

“It’s not as if we can’t afford it, Uncle Mahkas,” Kalan said, looking a little wounded that he wasn’t applauding their foresight. “And I’d be happy to bankrupt Krakandar if it means we don’t die of the plague.”

“That’s all right for you to say, young lady,” he snapped, “but—” Mahkas stopped abruptly. The four of them—Damin, Almodavar, Kalan and Rorin—were staring at him as if he was completely ignorant of the danger, with no concept or ability to deal with this threat to his city.
How dare they think
that? Krakandar has never had a better lord than Mahkas Damaran
. But it was clear rage would accomplish nothing here. He consciously bit back his anger, forcing himself to breathe deeply.

“Damin,” he said, in the calmest tone he could manage, “you have no authority to order the city sealed. Or any of the other actions you’ve set in motion in my absence. However, I appreciate that you and Kalan were trying to do the right thing, so I’ll overlook your disrespect and treat it as merely youthful enthusiasm.”

Damin looked at him oddly, and for a dreadful moment, Mahkas thought he actually meant to defy him.

“Youthful
enthusiasm
?” the young man repeated, as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears.

Mahkas ignored the question. “You can take me through your plans and I’ll see if they have any merit, and implement them if they prove sound. I’m sure you’ve got some excellent suggestions about how to manage this dreadful situation and I’ll be happy for you to assist me in dealing with it, if that is what you want.”

He waited, not sure what he was expecting Damin to do. This was the first time Damin had ever tried to exert any kind of authority in Krakandar and Mahkas wasn’t sure what would happen if he forced the issue. Whether he was legally old enough to rule or not, Damin was Krakandar’s prince.
Hell,
they turned out in droves just to welcome him back to the city
. If Damin wanted to dig his heels in, Mahkas faced a much greater crisis than simply finding the city sealed in his absence.

But the young prince smiled and stepped back from the table. “We were just trying to help, Uncle.”

Mahkas’s knees almost gave way with relief. “I know. And I do appreciate your efforts. You might have warned the gate about letting me back in when I arrived, however. It wouldn’t have been quite such a shock.”

Damin grinned, suddenly back to the rakish young man Mahkas remembered. “I promise, the next time I seal the city with you on the outside, Uncle Mahkas, I’ll do it much more effectively.”

Mahkas laughed politely, not sure if he liked the way Damin had phrased that, but then he dismissed his own foolishness and glanced around the room. “Is Leila not here helping you take over my city?”

“She’s with Tejay Lionsclaw in the nursery, I think,” Kalan informed him.

“Lady Lionsclaw is here?”

“She and her children arrived the same day you left for Walsark, my lord,” Almodavar said. “It was Lady Lionsclaw who brought the news of the spreading plague.”

“Then I’d best speak to her myself. Would you fetch her for me, please, Kalan?”

It was an unsubtle dismissal and his niece knew it. She nudged Rorin and the two of them left the room together. Almodavar also took the hint, pleaded other duties to attend to, and departed with a sharp salute, first to Damin and then—almost as an afterthought—to Mahkas.

Once they were alone, Mahkas felt a little easier. “You should be careful, Damin. Actions like the ones you took in my absence might be misconstrued.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Mahkas nodded with relief. “I know. Just think it through a little more carefully the next time, eh? Besides, I don’t know how you found the time to organise any of this.”
You should have been with
Leila
, he added silently, despairing to think Damin had found the time to plan the city’s defence against the plague when he should have been wooing his future bride.

“What else is there to do?” the young man asked with a frown. “Almodavar says you flatly refuse to let me accompany any of the raiding parties into Medalon.”

“Your father was killed while on a raiding party into Medalon.”

“It doesn’t automatically follow that I will be, Uncle.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it does mean your mother is rather touchy on the subject. I thought it would be better if we just didn’t go there.”

Damin’s eyes lit up mischievously. “But if I’m on a raiding party into Medalon, I won’t be here trying to take over your city. And I’d be much safer from the plague out there in the wilderness. It would be good practice for me. And if Almodavar or Raek Harlen came along to keep an eye on me, I could get in some much needed command experience. And it would be—”

“All right!” Mahkas cried, throwing his hands up to halt Damin’s undoubtedly endless list of justifications. “I’ll think about it!”

He grinned happily. “That’s all I ask, Uncle Mahkas.”

“And
while
I’m thinking about it, you must do me a favour.”

“Name it.”

“Spend some time with your cousin, would you? She’s missed you desperately while you’ve been gone.” He hesitated, suffering a moment of guilt as he recalled Bylinda’s harsh words in the carriage this morning about whoring his daughter for the sake of his ambition—and then he pushed his wife’s foolish fears aside and added, “The slaveways don’t get the same traffic they used to when you were children.”

Damin stared at him in confusion. “The slaveways?”

“You’re only young once, Damin. Make the most of it.”

He was a bright boy. It took very little time for Damin to work out exactly what Mahkas was implying.

“You wouldn’t mind?” he asked, as if making absolutely certain he understood.

“I already think of you as the son I never had, Damin.”

He was hoping, of course, that Damin would respond in kind and assure Mahkas that he was the father he’d never had, but the young prince simply nodded his understanding, looked at Mahkas oddly for a moment, and then, as if he had a sudden urge to be elsewhere, took his leave as quickly as he was able.

Mahkas smiled as the door closed behind Damin, thinking Bylinda was completely wrong. Damin was obviously so thrilled with his suggestion that he couldn’t wait to find Leila and tell her there was nothing standing in the way of them finding happiness in each other’s arms, and that they wouldn’t have to wait for the betrothal to consummate their union.

Filled with a deep sense of satisfaction, he walked around the desk and glanced down at the map of the city sewers Damin and the others had been examining, without really seeing it. All Mahkas could think of was the brilliant future that lay ahead for his family.
Once Damin has come of age, and
Lernen is dead, our daughter is married to the High Prince, and our own grandson the heir to the throne .

. . then Bylinda will see things differently
. Leila would probably be a little more grateful, too, for all his efforts on her behalf.

He only hoped Leila had the sense to ignore the lessons about taking precautions against an unwanted pregnancy she would have received from both her mother and her
court’esa
. Mahkas frowned when he caught himself thinking that. He was no better than all the others, he realised, recalling his greatest fear when Damin had left Krakandar to be fostered was that some minor lord’s daughter would find her way into his nephew’s bed, get herself knocked up and force Marla into agreeing to a totally inappropriate union. There was nothing inappropriate about Leila, he consoled himself. It was just that time was against him. Leila wasn’t getting any younger. None of them was. He was doing this for the good of Hythria, he reminded himself.

And if it meant arranging to have his own daughter impregnated with a bastard sired by the next High Prince of Hythria to force Marla into making the right decision about her son’s future, that was a sacrifice Mahkas was more than willing to make.

Ruxton Tirstone’s death hit Marla harder than she had expected. Although she had never loved any man the way she once burned for Nashan Hawksword, sixteen years of marriage couldn’t fail to leave its mark on her. Her grief was real, even if it was more for the loss of a companion than a lover.